Our first evening wild edibles walk was a great success! Thank you to everyone who came. We took our time walking the one kilometer loop, stopping to discuss nearly 20 edible, medicinal and poisonous plants. We also discussed how to make tinctures, vinegars, oils and salves, how to identify, harvest and use the plants and some of our favorite ways to prepare them to eat. Our next walks are planned for the end of Sept and into October. The dates haven’t been announced yet but stay tuned!

Some of the plants we discussed this evening included:

plantain - both wide leaf plantain (Plantago major) and narrow leaf plantain (Plantago lanceolata.) We talked about using plantain as an edible and medicinally, and how to gather the seeds.

dandelion

burdock - plenty of old burdock with lots of sticky burs, and an abundance of young first year plants whose roots and leaf stalks are great to harvest right now.

Pokeberry - This dark poison berry is also abundant now. It can be used as an ink or dye.

Oak Tree/Acorn

Mulberry Tree

Hawthorn berries/haws

Motherwort

Golden Rod (what people often think they’re allergic to, but the pollen travels by insect, not wind. It is used medicinally to combat allergies.)

Ragweed (what people are actually allergic to - this inconspicuous plant with green flowers has wind-born pollen and is what many people with fall allergies are allergic to.)

Wild Carrot/Queen Anne’s Lace

Dryad’s Saddle Mushroom - usually thought of as a spring mushroom, makes a reappearance again in late summer and fall.

Lamb’s Quarters

Broad Leaf Dock, leaves and seeds

Red Clover

White Clover

Wood Sorrel

Thanks so much to everyone who joined us tonight, and to Jen Verala for snapping some great photos of the walk! (If anyone else has photos they want to share with me and the Food Under Foot family, send them to Melissa@FoodUnderFoot.com. I will credit you! Dave forgot to take photos.)

We haven’t been out foraging this year as much as I’d like. Last year was a fantastic chanterelle year. This year, well, I honestly didn’t know.

This weekend we went up to Cook Forest State Park. Our reserved campsite was a mistake: loud, on the path to the bathroom, crowded, noisy. Luckily there were other spots available and we found a quiet one which was just at the start of a hiking trail.

After setting up camp we took an evening hike. There on the side of the trail were beautiful chanterelles.

chanterelles

We sauteed them with onions and roasted them in the fire into mountain pies with cheese.

The next morning we went out and harvested some more:

We sauteed them with onions, potatoes and had them with the most delicious eggs we picked up on an Amish farm in Smicksburg, on the way up to Cook Forest.

Later that morning we went to the Clarion farmer’s market and found a woman selling, alongside her organic produce, chanterelles by the pound.

The woman told us it is a GREAT year for chanterelles. She agreed that last year was fantastic, and reported this year is even better. “There’s been so much rain that my lettuce is terrible, my cucumbers practically non-existent, but the chanterelles are everywhere. They are saving my organic farm!”

How has your chanterelle season been? I’m back in Pittsburgh, and I’m going out as soon as I can to find more!

I have my garden in…but nothing is up yet. In fact, the tomatoes, peppers, basil and zucchini are still seedlings growing inside, the temperature outside is not consistently warm enough. And of the things I have planted: lettuce, kale, peas, radishes, only the merest of sprouts have come up. But I am not sad or impatient. Here’s why:

The WILD garden is filled with bounty right now! While my garden edibles won’t be ready for at least a month for the earliest things, NATURE is providing me with hardy greens of a variety of flavors, a variety of veggie stalks, and gorgeous gourmet mushrooms! Here are some of the things I’ve been enjoying the past week from Nature’s Garden, which is full of glorious abundance:

Stinging Nettles, Urtica dioica, they’re up and in my smoothies and soups!

nettles

Japanese Knotweed Stalks, deliciously tart, great for steaming, juicing and nibbling as a trailside treat

Deadnettles, flowering now, this gorgeous flower is going in the smoothies and stir fries

deadnettles blooming in mid-winter

Chickweed, love it in salad

Garlic Mustard, flowering already! In salads and pesto

Fiddleheads, use care not to overharvest this springtime delicacy!

Ramps, again, please use care not to overharvest!

ramps

Onion Grass, aka Wild Chives/Garlic/Onion, use as you would chives

Burdock Leaf Stalks, boil, steam, stir fry or add to soup

Burdock Roots, juice, use in coleslaw and sour kraut, or stir fry

Dandelion Leaves, bitter yet delicious and great as a liver cleanse

Dandelion Flowers - I have a batch of dandelion wine brewing!

Dandelion Root, dry for tea or dry roast and use as a coffee substitute

Mint, is popping up

Asparagus - If you’ve found a patch of wild asparagus you are in luck right now!

Hairy Bittercress, this was one of the first things up! Tastes a bit like radishes, adds bite to your salad

Morel Mushrooms, depending on where you live these have been up for a week or two or just due to come up. Yum!

morel mushroom

Dryad Saddle Mushrooms, if you find these with/instead of morels you’re in for a treat! Young dryads saddles are delightfully delicious.

Saute soaked morels, the rest of the onions and mushrooms in olive oil with salt in a frying pan.

Return blended soup to soup pot, adding sauteed onions and mushrooms.

Reheat and adding pepper and more salt as necessary to taste.

As you reheat soup may thicken due to the cashews, so add water and adjust seasoning if needed.

Other wild ideas for this recipe:

if you have dried maitake/hen-of-the-woods mushroom around, then leave out the button mushrooms and add a handful of dried maitake when you add the potatoes. These will get blended to make a rich mushroom-tasting broth.

You can substitute dried maitake (reconstituting them the way you reconstituted morels), or use frozen mushrooms like maitake or chicken mushroom.

Those most gourmet of edible mushrooms. The bright yellow find in the woods, smelling deliciously of apricot. So good.

So they say.

I have never been a fan of chanterelles. But it turns out it was me, not them.

I should have known 65 million French people couldn’t be wrong.

It turns out I didn’t know how to prepare them. And this year - 2013 - ends up being the year of the chanterelle. At least in the woods of Western PA. A whole group of mushroom hunters couldn’t harvest enough to put a dent in what was out there.

So I did a bit of internet research for chanterelle recipes, and I found this video. I left the butter out to keep the recipe vegan, and used fresh lemon thyme because that is what we have growing. It was the best.

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It’s mid December in Western Pennsylvania and no snow on the ground. Though it has flurried a couple of times nothing has stuck. It may drop below freezing at night, but during the day it is in the 40s and 50s and there are many wild edibles all around. So many nutritious greens to add to soups and salads!

I took these photos on a walk around the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Brookline. Besides these edibles I’ve seen lots of deadnettles and garlic mustard all around.

Dandelion in bloom mid-December

Lots and lots of mallow everywhere

It's hard to get a good photo of the wispy onion grass

Deliciously sour and fabulously healthy sorrel...one of the ingredients in the anti-cancer herbal formula Essiac.

The oyster mushrooms were found with my friend Trish just outside Pittsburgh, in Bellevue. They are delicious! More tomorrow on identifying oyster mushrooms.